Annual Report the Grauer School 2019-2020
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The Grauer School Annual Report 2019-2020 Table of Contents Page 3 A Message from The Head of School Page 4 Financial Report Page 5 Principal’s Report Page 8 Admissions Report Page 9 Marketing & Outreach Report Page 10 Research & Evaluation Department Report Page 13 Professional Development Program Report Page 15 Expeditionary Learning Center Report Page 18 Counseling Program Report Page 19 International Center Report Page 20 Humanitarian Service Center Report Page 22 STEM Center Report Page 25 Center for Athletics & Student Wellness Report Page 27 Visual and Performing Arts Center Report Page 29 Grauer Parent Association Report Page 30 Grauer Alumni Association Report Page 32 Giving Report The Grauer School — 1500 S. El Camino Real, Encinitas, CA 92024 — (760) 944-6777 Page 2 A Message from The Head of School Stuart Grauer, Ed.D. Get Outside! Greetings Everyone! Here is the Annual Report for the 2019-2020 Academic Year of The Grauer School, a home for collaborative leadership every day. Enjoy! For many years, I have directed my every thought and impulse towards the simple purpose of a sustainable school and foundation, built to last. I have been and plan to keep asking: • How can we have a more sustainable community? • How can our teachers and students connect better with the natural world? • Is there anything we can do for the benefit of those who may come to the School seven generations from now? Virtually all of Grauer’s systems, reports, faculty and staff teams, fundraising, and organizational developments revolve around these great questions. Our leadership team and other teams are at their highest levels of stabilty and ability now reaching 30 years of consistent organizational development, enabling me to focus on these long-range visions, and I could not be more confident or prouder of these teams. Our rallying cry last year was: “Get outside!” Learners who are connecting with nature, going to green spaces, seeing far, and re-visiting the wilderness are happier, healthier, and smarter: all this is deeply rooted in irrefutable educational research. Our green campus (40% of which is native habitat) is an inspiration in which to learn, work and play. We remove the great outdoors from our education and daily lives only at a major cost to all of our physical, psychological and spiritual selves. All of this is supported by endowments (now totaling around $10,000 per student) to pay out in support of deserving scholars and teachers in perpetuity. Needless to say, our year became overwhelmed with the onset of a global pandemic which shook everything we knew about life and schooling. On March 17, marked by one single day’s training session, our entire faculty and staff pivoted to at-home distance learning using technologies our faculty was mastering on the fly, such as Zoom and Google Classroom. As we approached the close of this year, our staff courageously stayed the course to host our annual Gala event “virtually,” to a resounding success—we never calculated that we could include more people, since people could Zoom in from all points. We hosted people from both coasts and exceeded our fundraising expectations (for both teachers and for the massive pandemic expenses we were facing), all while having a great evening. Given that most schools and school parents completely cancelled their own plans, our Gala was a stunning success with an outpouring of family support, such as this report reflects. Our gala and campus completion reflect the impact we are all making on young people finding courageous, unique voices they will need to face challenges to come. Look around at our classic quad surrounded by coastal sage and maritime chaparral that the Kumeyaay may have left for us—this is what we call school and, really, our home. I spend every day of my whole life trying to learn how our children can be better stewards of all this, how to create a school where the main goal is for students and their teachers to be proud of doing what their hearts tell them needs doing—this is why I show up. Stuart The Grauer School — 1500 S. El Camino Real, Encinitas, CA 92024 — (760) 944-6777 Page 3 Financial Report Lorin Port – Controller The Grauer School’s (“School”) philosophy has always been to focus on the highest quality, personalized education balanced with affordable tuition so that we can include families from across our community and with increasing diversity. As in previous years, all effort was made to both retain our greatest resource, our teachers, and keep class sizes small—a delicate balance. We continued to excel in this endeavor in 2019-2020, despite the uncertainty the pandemic has caused. Our focus on cash forecasting and building a budget that considers many possible outcomes has also been a priority. During the year, the School received an independent audit on its fiscal year ended July 31, 2019, with the financial statements receiving a clean opinion from the auditors as in previous years. A key goal of the Finance Committee is stable growth of the School’s assets, equity, and revenue. The School’s net assets (assets less liabilities) grew by 9.9% during the fiscal year. This increase was driven primarily by endowment contributions and investment earnings. While maintaining a surplus on operations, the school was able to once again slightly increase its scholarship expenses over the prior year, while also increasing the scholarship endowment by over $500k. In addition to our Access to Grauer Financial Assistance Endowment and our Teachers Endowment Fund, we were thrilled to start and to begin funding the Loewy-Linz STEM Endowed Chair. We are looking to fund additional Program endowments, such as for the Arts and Athletics/Fitness. The successful financial performance during the year continues to provide a strong foundation to help ensure the School meets its goals not just for this past year but for long into the future. [Note all references to financial metrics are reflective of the fiscal year ended July 31, 2020.] In this academic year, the Finance Committee will focus on seven primary goals: • Fiscal vigilance • Prudent financial management • Stable financial growth • Affordable tuition • Teacher retention • Building the all three endowment funds and perhaps establishing more endowed chairs. The Finance Committee will continue to focus on supporting the School’s purpose to provide advanced education locally and worldwide. The Grauer School — 1500 S. El Camino Real, Encinitas, CA 92024 — (760) 944-6777 Page 4 Principal’s Report Dana Abplanalp-Diggs The Grauer School was excited to celebrate its 29th year in 2019-2020. When we opened the school year in August, celebrating the occupation of our new Justice Center for the Performing Arts, we had no idea that our school year would end with our being off campus, connecting virtually via Zoom, during a global Covid-19 pandemic. It was certainly a memorable year. Whether on or off campus, we are continuing to redefine what an independent school looks and feels like by living our purpose every day—to teach and encourage students to become resourceful, intellectually curious, intrinsically motivated, self-advocating, and accountable in a college preparatory environment. Our program is working. Ninety-six percent of the members of our Class of 2020 were accepted into one of their top two colleges or universities; collectively, our 27 seniors were awarded over $5 million in merit-based scholarship awards. Most importantly, our students are happy. According to our annual Survey of School Quality, 98% of our students stated that they liked The Grauer School and 100% our students stated that their teachers really cared about them (compared to 48% of students nationally). Additionally, 98% of our parents believe that teachers respect their students as individuals. Although The Grauer School is small by design, we offered over 160 different classes, 23 unique extracurricular club offerings, 19 unique Expedition choices, and over 60 field trips for our approximately 170 students. This year, we added two new classes: Advanced Film and Leadership in the Visual Arts; we also added a new Dance Club. We expanded Alicia Tembi’s role to Assistant Principal, and hired Jamie Burnett to lead the school’s sustainable gardening initiative as our Green Grauer Gardening Leader. This year’s all school theme was Ecostewardship and students were involved through expeditions projects, gardening across the curriculum, and cross-curricular environmental activism collaborations. Perhaps the school’s biggest challenge presented itself in March when we were required to close all on campus operations to flatten the curve and help do our part to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. The Grauer School only lost one full day of regular instruction, pivoting to synchronous instruction using the Zoom platform. Grauer students attended their regularly scheduled classes virtually, continued to collaborate in breakout rooms, and engaged in an enriched curriculum. Our students were still held accountable for their coursework and earned grades; however, they were still given numerous opportunities to collaborate with their teachers during classes, in office hours, and in virtual clubs. Despite the pandemic, our creative faculty reimagined some of our favorite Grauer traditions, hosting the Gala, Prom (including the addition of a Minecraft Prom), Grauerpalooza, Senior Graduation Defense presentations, and even Graduation through Zoom. In addition to logging thousands of hours of community service and traveling across the globe with our Expeditions programs, our students and faculty amassed numerous awards this year. Some of these awards include: • National Public Radio (NPR) came to campus to interview Arabel M. ’20 and Thalia M. ’21 for a story about high school students’ views on climate change • Both our 8th grade girls Volleyball Team and our Middle School Flag Football teams won the Independent Middle School League Title.